


Haint Blue (No Grave Can Hold My Body Down)

by Liviania



Category: Work Song - Hozier (Music Video)
Genre: Comes Back Wrong, F/M, Southern Gothic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 07:04:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8362255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liviania/pseuds/Liviania
Summary: Robert had always figured he'd be the first to die.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



> "When I was kissin' on my baby  
> And she put her love down soft and sweet  
> In the low lamp light I was free  
> Heaven and hell were words to me
> 
> When my time comes around  
> Lay me gently in the cold dark earth  
> No grave can hold my body down  
> I'll crawl home to her"
> 
> \- Work Song, Hozier

Robert had always figured he'd be the first to die. Maybe it would be at the lumber mill, or maybe he'd forget to read the tide charts like a damn fool tourist and be swept away. But it would be him, not Beth Ann. Beth Ann sold chocolates out of an old home that had been converted into a chocolate factory. She greeted everyone with a plate of white chocolate orange melts, cut into tiny pieces for samples, and directed them to the owner if they had questions about ingredients. She didn't go swimming, either. She was from inland, and she'd never gotten used to the smell of the marsh. She only liked to swim in pools that had been chlorinated of all life.

Perhaps she knew, deep down, that it was the marsh that would get her.

She'd gone drinking with two of her friends that night. No one could figure exactly what happened, but it seemed the golf cart had broken down again and they decided to push it home. They'd misjudged which road they were on, which is easy to do when the night is on you like a blanket. They'd pushed the cart right into the marsh, and two of them drowned there in the dark. Carly had walked straight into a pole and her friends had left her there to sit down and rest, right against the fence that nearly saved their lives.

* * *

The funeral is a haze of peach wine and sobbing that Robert can't entirely recall. The two coffins sat at the front of the church together, closed and silent. Beth Ann's father made a comment about how they were burying her with extra dirt, the mortician unable to remove all of the marsh from the bodies.

Robert had laughed, in the way people do when something is too terrible to process, the body naturally warding itself against the horror.

Her dad had laughed too, tears running down into his mustache as red as her hair had been.

* * *

He pulls up to the house, parking right next to the door. Thankfully, he can't smell the marsh tonight. He can smell the lumber mill, that scent that used to make his stomach heave as a boy and that he's become inured to over the years of breaking trees into pulp.

Tonight, the sulfuric edge of the stink makes his nerves rattle. He hurries inside, as fast as he can with a door that sticks in its warped frame, and heads straight for the liquor.

After a few glasses the smell doesn't seem so bad, and he sits on the porch to watch the sun set, darkness spreading through the trees.

It's when the last vestige of sunlight disappears that he thinks he hears Beth Ann's voice calling his name, drifting distantly from the marsh.

He pours out another glass and raises it in a toast, but leaves it on the porch table. If he's hearing voices, it's time to turn in.

* * *

He sits drinking on the porch the next night too. The moon is a small sliver in the sky, but when the clouds part it is enough to illuminate some of the grounds past the porch light.

"Robert Lee," he hears again, more clearly, this time as a beam of moonlight falls on a flash of red out in the oaks.

"Beth Ann?" he calls, stumbling to his feet. He stands on the edge of the porch, peering off into the darkness. He places his hands on the rail for balance, but quickly yanks the right one back with a hiss of pain. Splinter, and it feels like a big one, though it's hard to tell in the dim light.

He looks out into the darkness once more, then retreats inside to care for his injured finger.

* * *

It becomes his nightly ritual, each night the voice becoming more distinct, and under the light of the full moon he can see the most he's ever gonna see at night.

This time, he calls out first. "Beth Ann?"

"Robert Lee!"

A shadowed figure enters his field of vision. It's slim and short, like her, but there's still not enough light to really see. For perhaps the first time in his life, Robert wishes he lived in the city where even at night it stayed light.

The figure moves toward him and he moves toward it, fumbling with the latch on the porch door. It's a simple one, but hard to do without sight and he's not taking his eyes off of Beth Ann.

That's when he sees her lift a hand up and trail it through the Spanish moss dangling from the trees. He stops fumbling with the latch.

"Beth Ann?"

She drops to all fours at the porch steps and crawls up them. When she tilts her head up, he can see that it is her. Same short red hair, same big eyes, same pointy incisors. She looks beautiful even in the dim porch light, mud streaked on her pale skin.

But there she stays, on the other side of the door.

So he goes out to her.

* * *

She kisses him, as soft as ever, but the last thing he feels are sharp teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> Things that might help this story make sense:
> 
> Haint Blue is a shade of blue painted on the ceiling of porches to trick spirits and keep them from entering the house. 
> 
> Golf carts are often used for transportation in small southern towns. They're cheaper to own and maintain than cars, and everything is close enough that it doesn't matter that they're a bit slower.
> 
> Science says that chiggers only infest Spanish moss after it falls on the ground, but pretty much anyone who doesn't gather it professionally avoids touching it, even on trees.
> 
> The setting of this story is heavily based on the area around the Golden Isles of Georgia.


End file.
